10
Chapter Ten
SIN
I think there's a holein my stomach and I feel like I'm burning from the inside out. Someone did this to me. Someone had to have done this to me. I try to force up more bile, but there's nothing left. My head is pounding again and I think I'm seeing double. Cool water is running over my forehead and Reese is repeating something over and over, but I can't make out what she's saying.
Another shooting pain writhes through me, forcing my body to contract into a tighter ball than I am already in. I have felt sorry for myself a number of times over the past several years. I've blamed everyone for the demise of my life and it has been those times where I have felt like giving up. Right now is one of those times. I think I'm finally losing this battle. I promised myself I would go out fighting, and God knows I have tried.
"Sin, we have to go," Reese shouts in my ear. How the hell am I supposed to move right now? My stomach is cramped into a tight knot and I think the rest of my senses are gone at this point too. It's the next phase. My body is shutting down. It's all part of the plan. "Sin." Reese's hands are around my wrists, pulling me up. I can hear the panic in her voice. There's going to come a time very soon where we both choose to give up at the same time. It feels inevitable.
A cold sting burns across my face and it helps me to focus on Reese and her hand winding up to hit me again. "Whoa," I groan.
"Let's go. Now." I watch her lift her arm and shoot her pistol a couple of times, and with the slow motion I feel like I'm moving in, I turn to see what she's shooting. It only takes a second for me to stand the hell up and grab her by the arm. With each step I take, I feel like I'm breaking through the earth's surface from my heavy weight. And then there are the trees that are swaying. Fuck. I don't know if I can do this. "Where are they coming from?"
"I don't know," I say, winded.
She stops behind a tree to catch her breath, and I stop beside her, holding myself up against the tree, breathing in and out at the same rate she is. We watch as the oversized hawks fly by, several at a time. "Was it because we killed one?"
"Again, I really don't know. I don't know much of anything. No more than you do, anyway." Things change here all of the time, or at least whenever fuckface Crownwell decides to do this. He doesn't want anyone getting too comfortable with their lives here.
"Well, what are we supposed to do? Just keep running? Because it seems like that's all we've been doing for days and I still don't have any clue what we're running from or what we're running to. Are we trying to find a way out?" She keeps asking me the same questions, like I'm going to give her different answers. Even when I was living here as the "caretaker's son", I knew next to nothing of my surroundings, the real reasons Mom was working here, as well as any reason why the other people were living here. Whenever I inquired, I was brushed off or ignored. It wasn't until I overheard Crownwell's phone call that I knew exactly what this place was. That man will do whatever it takes to keep this place a secret. For good reason. When anyone finds out about Chipley, he's done. Personally, I'd like to let every prisoner out of this place and let nature take its course, but I'm guessing that won't happen.
"Yes, we have to keep running. I want to get us out of here."
"Sin, how long are we going to keep running away from things? If it's not people trying to kill us for food, they're trying to kill us to become food, and now there are these hawks or whatever the hell they are, and they want us dead too. Neither of us is completely sure we even want to continue running, and yet, we're supposed to just keep going. We need a plan. We need to know what direction we're heading in. Don't you understand this? Don't you get it? We could be running toward our death!" she shouts with frustration. "Why are we going to keep running toward our death when it would be so easy to just give up and die? I need a reason, Sin. Give me a reason!"
"Me, Reese. Can I just be enough of a reason right now? I know I'm nothing, and I know I'm an asshole, but, Jesus, for me, will you just have a little hope?" I have no hope, and I'm asking her to have hope. "Why did you want to survive all of that time in the shed? Was it because you had hope that some day you would get out?"
"Yes," she says quietly, seeming a little out of it. I take her hand, ignoring the pain in my stomach, the need to vomit, and the throbbing on the back of my head.
"Look, I wanted to head in this direction for food, but also, I heard a rumor of a way out, but it was only a general direction. What other shot do we have right now?"
"Sin," she whispers. "The sky." She points off into the distance between the thickly covered branches, but all I see is the darkness of the night.
"What is it?" I ask her, settling back down into the ground. I can't keep walking right now.
"It's orange and yellow. Do you see the shapes? They're beautiful." I glance over at her, waiting for her to crack a smile or laugh. Not that I could figure out how to do either of those right now, but I don't know what the hell she's talking about.
"You being funny?" I ask her.
The confused and yet amazed expression covering her face doesn't change after my question. Her focus is locked on the small portion of the sky we can see. "No, don't you see it?" And there's the smile, but it's not a joking smile. It's a smile as if she just found her exit from hell. And it's worrying me.
She takes some steps back into the path we were just running down and continues forward as if she were in a trance.Dammit.I stand up and follow her, bouncing from tree to tree as support. We walk for what must be a mile before the trees fade into a large open field of grass. There's grass. I haven't seen this much grass in years. Reese slips her boots off and tucks them under her arm as she runs ahead. "Feathers!" she shouts. "Do you feel the feathers beneath your feet, Sin?"Feathers?"And the horses. Look at all of them. I used to ride, did I tell you that?"
I finally catch up with her and stop her. "Reese, the sky is dark, the feathers are grass, and there are no horses or animals anywhere." She tugs her arm out of my hand and continues running forward.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she shouts back to me. "It's so beautiful out here."
"Reese," I call calmly. I don't want to get into a scuffle with her, but I'm pretty sure she's hallucinating. Another phase.
"Look, Sin!" It takes me some time to catch up to her again, and when I do, she points off into the distance. "Do you see that?"
"No, Reese. There's nothing but grass." She reaches out and claws her hand around the air, twisting her wrist as if she were opening a door. A door that isn't there.
"Are you coming?" she asks. I'm left scratching my head as she ducks her head down a couple of inches and walks in through the empty air as if she were trying not to hit her head on something. "Come on!" I follow her, though, without concern of hitting my head or a door closing in my face. She spins around, her eyes wide with excitement. "Do you see the door?"
"The one you just walked through?" I ask, trying my hardest to hide the sarcasm. If she is in fact hallucinating, there's not much I can do to convince her of anything other than what she's seeing.
